Sunday, June 17, 2007

USS Liberty

I wasn't too sure what to talk about today, but you know, something we've never talked about on here, and something, the magnitude of which I only properly became aware of last year (or was it the year before?) through Alex Jones' Terrorstorm video was the attack on the USS Liberty.

Now sure, I had heard of it, heard people talking about it before but, I am ashamed to say, was not properly aware of exactly what it was about and its enormous implications until then. And while it's still not a subject I at all claim to be particularly fluent on, it's a gravely important one which people do need to be aware of.

This year of course has marked the 40th anniversary since the horrific attack on The Liberty and there has been a lot of articles on sites and blogs, and discussion about this on internet radio and so on.

One article in particular from some days ago that many people were linking to was an extremely candid one that refers to this directly by former US Congressman Paul Findley, who wrote the book They Dare to Speak Out. Findley is under no doubt about what happened that day:

"It all started 40 years ago. On June 8, 1967, the U.S. commander in chief, President Lyndon B. Johnson, turned his back on the crew of a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Liberty, despite the fact that the ship was under deadly assault by Israel’s air and sea forces. The Israelis were engaged in an ugly scheme to lure America into their war against Arab states. They tried to destroy the Liberty and its entire crew, then pin the blame on the Arabs. This, they reasoned, would outrage the American people and immediately lead the United States to join Israel’s battle against Arabs. (to effectively create an early version of the 'War on Terror' to quote a recent radio programme I was listening to -j)

The scheme almost worked. It failed because, despite the carefully planned multipronged assault, the Liberty crew managed to broadcast an SOS over a makeshift antenna. When the appeal reached U.S. aircraft carriers nearby, the commanders immediately launched fighter planes to defend the ship. Informed of the launch, President Johnson ordered the rescue planes to turn back immediately.

For the first time in history, forces of the U.S. Navy were denied the right to defend a Navy ship under attack. Johnson said, “I don’t care if the ship sinks, I am not going to embarrass an ally.” Those were his exact words, heard by Navy personnel listening to radio relays.

The ally Johnson refused to embarrass was Israel. When the SOS reached the top military commanders in Israel, they immediately canceled the assault, claiming it was a case of mistaken identity. At the White House, Johnson accepted Israel’s claim, even though he knew it was a lie. Then Johnson magnified the day’s infamy by ordering a coverup of the truth. Liberty survivors were sworn to secrecy. Even those in hospital beds and badly wounded were threatened with court martial if they told anyone what actually happened. The coverup has been continued by every administration since Johnson’s."

Now as you may have been reading, something else has happened recently, a US Navy veteran, and major figure with a special interest in the USS Liberty and as I understand it, a source for a book called Operation Cyanide, as well as a BBC documentary, Richard Thompson was tragically killed in a car accident 1, leading to some speculation about the exact nature of that considering, again as I understand it, he was about to go forth with some new significant information regarding the Liberty affair.